The Cote Charity (Care Homes) – ensuring seamless 24-hour care and service for their residents

The Cote Charity has provided retirement housing and a range of care options for older people in Bristol for over 40 years. Purpose-built Katherine House was opened in 2009 for 41 residents, a further home, Griffiths House for dementia care patients opened next door in 2016.

The charity’s ethos is very much about creating a caring environment and bringing variety and enjoyment to the lives of their residents through on-site activities and outings.

Why were you looking for a time and attendance system?

Michelle Towers is the care home administrator and explains what the issues they faced were.

“We were using paper timesheets and compiling rotas using Microsoft Word, then performing weekly analysis, cross checking timesheets against the rota. This was time-consuming and open to human errors. Payroll was then sent to our accounts department via a spreadsheet.”

“Holidays were requested on a paper form. We were looking to streamline our admin processes and be able to more accurately monitor attendance, time-keeping and sickness.”

Why did you choose the Chronologic Workforce Management System?

The charity was in touch with another local care home who was in the process of installing our time and attendance system and they recommended the system to The Cote Charity.

“We also went to another Chronologic customer to see a demo and talk to the administrator. The system appeared to cover all of the areas that we were looking to streamline in our admin processes and make them less susceptible to human error.”

The charity chose to use Employee Self-Service and biometric fingerprint clocking. All 54 staff now clock in - managers, admin, care staff, domestic staff and kitchen staff. Employee Self-Service enables staff to view their timesheets and rotas, and request holidays online using PCs, tablets and smartphones. Optionally staff can also be enabled to clock-in online and a record of their clocking location/s made if required, viewable on Google Maps.

An availability screen now shows managers staffing levels at a glance making it much easier to plan cover. And HR information is stored in one place with appropriate view and manage access.

“The system is easy to use and navigate around. It’s time saving looking at staff HR issues such as sickness and holiday. The memo tab on each member of staffs’ employee records is very helpful to communicate with staff with permitted access.”

How has the Chronologic system benefited The Cote Charity?

“Time saving. Also staff being able to remotely access their rota so that they can see what shifts they are due to work and book annual leave.”

The Chronologic support team

The charity previously managed a large number of shifts operated in their multi-skilled, 24-hour environment, on spreadsheets. The Chronologic Workforce Management System now handles their complex shift patterns and pay rates seamlessly.

When setting up a new attendance system, there’s always a certain amount of dedicated customer resource initially required, which we explain to customers from the outset. Our helpdesk team is always on-hand to support customers through the process.

Michelle took on the task of setting up the system and working with the support team to make sure our time and attendance system delivered what the charity needed. She admits that at the beginning the set-up was a bit daunting but…